THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE
BY POTSHERD, NOT BLACKBALL, THE GREEKS OSTRACIZED A MAN
On bits of broken pots, voters scratched the names of men they wanted to exile. On these
discarded ballots, found at the Athenian Agora, are two famous names: Themistocles, upper right,
Aristides just below.
Aristides' opposition to Themistocles' big-navy plan led to the former's
ostracism, but later he commanded an Athenian squadron.
Judging from the number of ballots
which bear his name, Themistocles, savior of Athens from the Persian fleet at Salamis, was the
most hated leader of ancient times. At least 6,000 voters had to cast an ostraca ballot to ostracize
a man (page 300).
Then a milk can of drinking water is
dumped off, the truck goes on, and an
Italian family is left, far from home, with
a home of its own.
If one family fails in this tough fight to
make the desert blossom again as it did
many centuries ago, another family takes
its place. New olive groves are already
growing in spots indicated as olive groves
on ancient mosaic maps.
The displaced Arabs are given a pastoral
monopoly and better watering places for
their flocks, and are encouraged toward
agriculture and village life.
Even the fine Libian roads are long on
the huge expanse of Africa. From Tripoli
to Bengasi, a tiring 679-mile motor ride,
it is a 3-hour hop by plane.
Air travelers arriving in Bengasi from
Tunis, Rome, Hong Kong, or Addis Ababa
look down on the Garden of Hesperides with
whose apples Atlas tantalized Hercules.
It was at Bengasi that Hercules lay sleep
ing, like some ancient Gulliver, while Afri
can pygmies buried him in sand.*
Bengasi formerly bore the name of Ber
enice, whose bobbed head would make
her interesting even if one did not know
that her hair, as the Coma Berenices, is a
constellation.
She vowed her tresses to Aphrodite in
reward for her husband's return, but her
head, judging from the marble portrait
which I held in my hands in Cyrene, did not
suffer in beauty. One can still see the henna
sizing which held gold leaf to her modern
looking hair wave, permanent for nearly
2,200 years.
CROPS GROW WHERE GOATS ROAMED
On my way from Bengasi, seaport of
Cirenaica, to its ancient capital at Cyrene
(Cirene), the most interesting sights were
grain elevators and combined thresher and
baling machines moving over fertile fields
which were long abandoned to the lizard
and wild goat.
* See "Cirenaica, Eastern Wing of Italian Libia,"
by Harriet Chalmers Adams, NATIONAL GEO
GRAPHIC MAGAZINE, June, 1930.
332